mea culpa

this begins and ends beautifully. purity-pale is perfect. apoplexies happen.

you and I both know/that this is my fault--/yet you take the fall.

is where you lose me. It takes this beautiful, ambiguous imagery and ties it into something very specific, constricts it.

me: a criminal without punishment--/you: a sinner without sin.

These are simplistic descriptions of some otherwise intensely realized people, who parody apology and are witch-white, and such. makes them smaller somehow.

It takes two tracks, too. paying court, the jury's out.... and parodies, and carnival sideshows. taken individually, some of these lines are a punch to the brain. maybe if it wasn't so grounded by the middle bits, made mundane, the sort of mixture there might not be so tough to swallow. Iunno. you know?

p.s. three stars for everything because fuck star rating systems for goddam poetry. that's retarded.